This is a Sports Racket with innovative uniform elongated spring bed, uniform main stings and cross strings segments, uniform elongated sweet spot, uniform head structure, innovative robust yoke design, and handle.
Sport racquets, such as tennis, racquetball, squash and badminton racquets, are well known and typically include a frame having a head portion coupled to a handle portion. The head portion supports a string bed having a plurality of main string segments interwoven with a plurality of cross string segments. Many racquets also include a throat portion positioned between and connecting the handle portion to the head portion. The typical string bed of a sports racquet includes a central region, that provides the most responsiveness, the greatest power and the best “feel” to the player, upon impact with a ball, and a peripheral region. The central region, (the middle third of the racket) commonly referred to as the “sweet spot,” is typically defined as the area of the string bed that produces higher power and control values. A higher power and control value generally directly corresponds to greater power and greater responsiveness.
The peripheral region is the region between the sweet spot and the hoop of the head portion of the racquet. The peripheral region provides increasingly reduced levels of responsiveness, power and feel to the player, the further away the location of impact occurs from the sweet spot. As a result, a typical racquet provides a wide variety of responsiveness and power depending upon the location of the impact. In many racquets, a miss-hit, occurring just a small distance away from the sweet spot, can produce an undesired response from the racquet. The significant variability in a string bed's power and responsiveness between the sweet spot and locations about the peripheral region can result in inconsistent play, if the player's racket does not consistently impact the ball at the sweet spot. The variability of the string bed response can also reduce the margin of error afforded to the player upon impact with a ball, which can contribute to unforced errors.
Some existing racquets incorporate a larger sized hoop portion supporting a larger sized string bed (i.e., a larger head size) in an effort to increase the size of the string bed and the sweet spot. However, as the head size of a racquet increases so does the polar moment of inertia of the racquet. A racquet with a higher polar moment of inertia can be more difficult to maneuver, particularly at the net or upon return of serve, than a racquet with a lower moment of inertia. Additionally, some users find large head racquets to be more difficult to swing than racquets with normal sized heads.
Other existing racquets extend the length of the central most main string segments in order to increase the size of the racquet's sweet spot. However, the central main string segments of a typical string bed are generally already of sufficient length to provide the desired response at the central most portions of the string. Further increasing the length of the already elongated central main string segments can produce too much variability in the string bed performance and potentially lead to a string bed with undesirable variability in response and performance.
Thus, there is a continuing need for a racquet having a string bed with an enlarged sweet spot, which does not negatively affect the overall performance of the racquet. It would be advantageous to produce a racquet with a string bed that provides a high level of response and power over a larger area, without producing excessive or undesirable variability in response or performance across the string bed. A racquet is needed, that can increase performance at the peripheral regions of the string bed and generally enlarge the sweet spot of the racquet. It would be advantageous to provide a racquet with an enlarged sweet spot without increasing the polar moment of inertia of the racquet head and without negatively affecting the maneuverability of the racquet. There is also a need for a racquet having a string bed with an enlarged sweet spot that is not a radical departure in look and design from traditional sport racquet designs.
There also exists a continuing need for innovative approaches to efficiently and reliably secure elongated racquet string(s) to a racquet. In particular, it would be advantageous to provide a racquet that allows elongated main string segments to be coupled or engaged to the yoke or handle of the racquet without producing unnecessary stress risers in the racquet frame. It would be desirable to produce a lightweight durable article for facilitating the passage of racquet strings through the racquet frame, and a method of making such an article, that can be incorporated into a composite racquet in a reliable and cost efficient manner. It would be advantageous if such a method were applicable to other composite sporting goods such as, for example, ball bats and golf shafts.